Saturday, August 08, 2015

Kentucky
will delay incorporating job performance ratings of teachers and
principals into the Unbridled Learning accountability model for at least
a year following a decision Thursday by the state board of education.

Specifically,
a scheduled inclusion of up to 10 points in school and district scores,
based on how principals evaluated teacher growth and superintendents
calculated the same for principals, won’t be factored into the annual
progress scores for the 2015-16 school year. The 10 points will remain
with the existing assessment areas on student academics (achievement,
gap, growth, college/career readiness and graduation rate) and the
program reviews (covering writing, arts and humanities, practical
living, K-3 studies in elementary schools and world languages in high
schools for 2016).

In presentations to the KBE, Education
Commissioner Terry Holliday and Associate Commissioner for Assessment
and Accountability Rhonda Sims said the one-year wait would be the best
of several options, and addresses concerns raised about the PGES
(Professional Growth and Effectiveness System) ratings for educators.

“Taking
the one year will give more time to build capacity,” Holliday told the
state board, which voted unanimously for the delay but also indicated it
would review the decision next year.

In an interview with
eNews, Sims agreed that in terms of inclusion in the overall ratings for
schools and districts, PGES “is not fully ready yet.

“When you
put something in accountability, you want it ready for that kind of
reporting because it carries consequences,” she said. While there would
have been no immediate use of PGES evaluations in personnel decisions in
2015-16, eventually that option is part of the Senate Bill 1 law that
required development of the Unbridled Learning system.

According
to a Kentucky Department of Education staff report to the KBE
(highlights included below), another point of concern dealt with the
possibility of PGES ratings being inflated at the local level. At
Thursday’s KBE meeting, it was discussed that more than 90 percent of
educators who have had their 2014-15 evaluations reported to the state
are rated as being “exemplary” or “accomplished,” the two highest
possible ratings.

Another unknown that could be resolved before
2016 is the outcome of Congressional negotiations on reauthorization of
the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (formerly referred to as No
Child Left Behind). A key point remaining to be settled between the
House and Senate is future federal requirements for use of educator
evaluations, either as part of state accountability systems or as data
outside the ratings but reported separately to the public.

KDE Staff report for KBE Aug. 6 meeting

Next Generation Professionals Accountability

Senate
Bill 1 (2009) required Kentucky to begin a new assessment and
accountability system in the 2011-12 school year. The assessment and
accountability model is a balanced approach that incorporates all
aspects of school and district work and is organized around the Kentucky
Board of Education’s four strategic priorities: nextgeneration
learners, next-generation professionals, next-generation support systems
and next-generation schools/districts. Kentucky's Unbridled Learning
Accountability Model is made up of three components.

Next-Generation
Learners (70%) was the first component to be enacted in the 2011-12
school year. This component measures performance in the areas of
achievement, gap, growth, college/career readiness and graduation rate.

Next-Generation
Instructional Programs and Support (20%), the second component,
officially began in the 2013-14 school year following a pilot of the
program reviews. The program reviews are expanding from the original
Arts and Humanities, Practical Living/Career Studies and Writing to
include K-3 and World Languages. The K-3 program review was included in
the 2013-14 calculation following a pilot process. World Languages will
have a similar track and begin as a pilot for high schools in 2014-15
with elementary and middle school levels included at a future date.

Next-Generation Professionals (NGP) (10%) is the final component slated to be added to the model in the 2015-16 school year.

Educator
effectiveness has always been a state priority and is reflected in
state and national (Race to the Top (RTT) and Elementary and Secondary
Education Act (ESEA) Flexibility Waiver) expectations. As the discussion
began concerning Next Generation Professionals Accountability, the
School Curriculum, Assessment and Accountability Council (SCAAC)
recommended that performance category percentages be used as the measure
for the ten points in the accountability model for Next Generation
Professionals.

However, concerns have been expressed that
Professional Growth and Effectiveness System (PGES) ratings may be
inflated. Therefore, at the July SCAAC meeting, KDE discussed two
options that could be considered for calculating the ten points.

Option
1 is an all or nothing model. In this model, the Kentucky Department of
Education (KDE) would set a delivery target for each school based on
reducing novice performance to two percent or less by 2020. If a school
meets the target, then the school gets all ten points in the
teacher/principal accountability component. If the school does not meet
the target, then it gets zero points. If the school eliminates novice
and maintains zero percent novice, then it gets the ten points every
year.

Option 2 is a 50/50 model. In this model, KDE would use
the novice reduction model in option one but assign only five points.
The other five points would go toward the percentage of teachers meeting
student growth goals. The district accountability model would be the
average of the points achieved by the schools.

Groups Consulted and Brief Summary of Responses:

School Curriculum, Assessment, and Accountability Council (SCAAC)

Teacher Effectiveness Steering Committee (TESC)

Kentucky Education Association (KEA)

Feedback from the listed groups did not support either option that was proposed above.
SCAAC
did not support Option 1 nor Option 2. The committee shared that
educator effectiveness is measured through the student outcomes of
students throughout all components of the accountability model. Although
the advisory council did not have a quorum to make a formal
recommendation, they did discuss it and found consensus on two
additional recommendations as follows:

Solution 1: Distribute the educator effectiveness points into the Achievement, Gap, and Growth components. pasting. (At the KBE
meeting, this option was corrected to distribute points across the whole accountability
model with Next-Generation Learners remaining at 77 percent and Program Reviews at
23 percent.)

Solution 2: If the educator effectiveness component
could not be redistributed, they would like to recommend the original
recommendation of 70% Overall Teacher Effectiveness and 30% Overall
Principal Effectiveness.

The TESC was polled after the June KBE
meeting to receive input on support for the two options presented to
the board. Thirteen members responded with the majority suggesting other
options including distribution of points across each component,
removing the measure, and using the Professional Practice rating.

The
KEA expressed concern over the two options proposed to the KBE and
suggested the ten points be distributed across Achievement, Gap, and
Growth.

Staff Recommendation and Rationale:

Staff
recommends that the KBE approve the suggestion of distributing the
educator effectiveness points across the entire accountability model. It
was most recently suggested by SCAAC but was one of the ideas voiced by
the other constituency groups.

The recommendation is reflective of feedback from constituents and aligns with the ESEA waiver requirements.

1 comment:

Program Reviews - School program evaluations done by teachers questioned when scores are declared to be inflated.

PGES - School teacher evaluations done by principals questioned when scores are declared to be inflated.

What does that seem to say about either the expectations of KDE (educators and their programs should score lower) or about the reliability of scores based upon self evaluation? Could it conceivably be that programs and teachers do a pretty good job but factors beyond the control of the educational frame are impacting student performance?

Maybe we should just stick with measuring if kids are learning and leave it at that instead of trying to throw everything and the kitchen sink into one super score for the school which in the end doesn't really measure much of anything?

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